


this body is yours and this body is mine

by biochemprincess



Category: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multiple Deaths of the same Character(s), Time is a Mess™, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 19:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biochemprincess/pseuds/biochemprincess
Summary: The Omega is dead. The war is over. They are something else now.





	this body is yours and this body is mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jeffgoldblumvevo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeffgoldblumvevo/gifts).



> Dear jaegermighty, happy holidays! I loved your prompt so much, I just had to do a re-watch and write you a little something.

The Omega is dead.

Now the only thing left was him, witness to a monumental moment in history that never existed.

But he hadn't taken its place, not quite.

He is something else now.

 

-

 

They win and the mimics are gone and he looks at Rita for just one last time and then he goes back to his old life, if you could call it a life, whatever jumbled mess it had been before the war.

Gets an honourable discharge and sufficient pension.

He hates every second of it, until the very end. A seed of loneliness had been planted inside him forever ago and it blooms for the remainder of his sorry life, into a garden of unwillingness and self-loathing and solitude.

Pitying himself is a game he's still phenomenal at, despite varying horrifying deaths ridding him of the foulest parts of himself.

William Cage dies at the age of 74, a pulmonary embolism, as he walks down the stairs of a home far too big for him alone.

His housekeeper doesn't even have time to find him, because the moment his heart beats for the last time he is already somewhere else, back at the start, back at the beginning.

 

-

 

The next time he drinks himself to death.

It's radical and he isn't proud of himself; Rita would have a scathing lecture prepared for him, but at least he doesn't feel anything.

And it's not like he makes her watch him die. He's taken himself out of her equation, the one that started at the beach countless of reboots ago. The Angel of Verdun in all her glory, a Marian apparition, something almost holy. 

(Though maybe she wouldn't even mind, letting him reap the fruits he sow.)

The quintessence is: Everything is numb and nothing matters.

Sunlight blinds his eyes every morning; at night he sees visions of places he has visited in another life. His brain becomes too small for all the details to be stored inside.

Loop after loop blends into each other until it's the ugliest watercolour painting any kindergartener could ever produce.

Cage was old, with wrinkled hands and hurting joints. Now he's less old, again. It's the discrepancy that leaves him stuck between a rock and a hard place. When he looks into the mirror the face he meets is not the one he expects.

The vodka takes care of it just fine.

He doesn't know what he aims to find at the bottom of empty bottle after empty bottle, but he has nothing to expect anyway. All his life has been an aimless drift from one point to another, without a goal. He's never had any ambition to begin with and the Omega took the rest of it to its grave.

Now he has more lives than any fucking cat and no idea what to do with it.

It takes his ageing liver 35 months to give up and the hepatitis and ALC to kill him.

But what's the point?

It's not like it's permanent.

 

-

 

Three more, four more, five more lives. Some are shorter than others, some are happier than others.

One time he decides to rig the game. Becomes rich and famous, in attempt to stitch together the gaping wounds he carves for himself. He does Public Relations for up and coming actors, gives them the roles they are meant to play and lets the media fawn over his magic touch for talents.

Once, a thousand loops and half a dozen life times ago it would've been enough.  

Instead he becomes even unhappier than usual. Dies surrounded by unimaginable wealth, all alone.

There's nobody he wants to spend his time with, nobody who could fathom the depths of his fucked up mind.

(He can't drag the one other person who would understand into this. _I wish I didn't know you. But I do_. He wishes he knew her better. _I wish I had the chance to know you better._

But, what if?)

 

-

 

Cage has a ritual; land, get out, find her.

It's the one directive he never changes.

He has to see her and know she's alright, still there, alive.

Just _once._

Watch her train and look at him with annoyance and suspicion. Why should a stranger have any right to walk up to her and speak to her? And damn right, he doesn't. But he had to talk to her just once, in every incarnation.

Finding her and letting go.

It's what they do.

It's an unspoken agreement between all the men he has ever been.

Cage intends to follow his simple plan once again. Maybe give the alcohol reboot another try , cloud his consciousness in oblivion instead of the constant mourning.

Because there's a limited number of people you can mourn for.

And he carries them with him, every version of her, every time she pulled the trigger on him and every time she died in the farm house and how her hands felt caked with dried blood and the feeling of her lips on his.

And he mourns them all, every. single. one.

The universe is endless, like the fractures of his mind, a glittering kaleidoscope of hope and despair, for a better future and serene afterlife. In his lowest moments he begs to the gods to absolve him of this, for mercy, for a lasting death.

An end.

He tells her the truth this time, just once. Giving it a chance. Every loop is just another chance for change, undoing mistakes and the wrong words at the right moment, good decisions paired with bad intentions.

Cage stands in front of her, as sweat glistens on her toned arms and he says, "I was like you, before Verdun. We won."

The pause between the full stop and her answer, the time it takes for his words to register and sink in and her mouth to form a reply, it feels longer than any life he's ever lived.

Her posture doesn't relax entirely, but it loses some tension. "Let's debrief with Carter and get drinks. You look like you need them."

They become friends, more or less. In the aftermath he does some PR work, while she helps rebuild Europe. They stay in contact for the rest of their lives, more or less regularly.

It's a start.

 

-

 

He tells her truth, again.

They have dinner and then they go out to celebrate with the rest of the survivors. After all, they won a war.

Maybe he kisses her at the end of the night, the first time for her and only the second time for him. It might be the only thing they're almost evenly matched.

Maybe he follows her wherever she goes.

Maybe he tells her everything, every loop and every messed up decision they have made in order to save the world.

Maybe the soldiers she trains make lewd jokes about her stay-at-home boyfriend and maybe he fuels them at every opportunity. He has a wicked sense of humour and he keeps it until the end.

It's his happiest life by far, the one they share together.

 

-

 

Again.

He fucks up, this time. But he doesn't know, not until it's over.

Standing in the kitchen of a nondescript apartment, Cage counts some money to pay for the pizza he's ordered. He hopes Rita will come by later tonight, but she has some training scheduled with her unit, so he doesn't exactly count on it.

For the blink of an eye he exhales; the next moment his neck is stiff from being slept on in an unfortunate position and his stomach surges at the unexpected sensation of being airborne again.

It's a surprise, waking up at the start this time.

He didn't die, for the first time in thousands of loops. But he looped, nonetheless. It's been only a few years, it doesn't make sense.

But he wakes up in the chopper and he vows to do it again, but differently, whatever had gone wrong.

(He wants to, at least.

Rita changes things.

She always does.)

 

-

 

When Cage enters the familiar training room this time, it's different. She looks up and he can see recognition in her eyes. It's painted all over her.

She remembers.

They stare at each other across the space between them, until he walks up to her. He doesn't know what to say, never does. But this is novel. They have never made it to this point.

In all of his many lives she has never looked at him for the first time and seen _him._

"I didn't die," he says.

Rita bites down on her bottom lip, nods, but says nothing.

Something is off, the way she holds herself, the distance she maintains. She knows why they are where they are.

"There was an incident, during my near-combat training session. Got thrown against the wall like never before. Broke a few ribs, I guess."

"You died?"

"No," comes her clipped reply. "But let's just say we are equally fucked now."

"What are you talking about?"

The hands at her hips slowly wander over her abdomen. She turns around and resumes her training. She doesn't explain it any further, but he gets the message without it regardless.

 

-

 

(Scientifically speaking, what is offspring but an extension of yourself?

Half of you in a different body.)

 

-

 

"I thought you've tried every option, after you lost the power at Verdun."

"Trust me, I did. But not this, I mean."

"But ---"

"Microchimerism."

"Fancy word. You talked to Carter, didn't you?"

"Shut up, Cage. But yes, I did. During a pregnancy DNA from the foetus circles through the mother's blood stream via the placenta. Congrats, you gave me the stupid Omega DNA."

"But shouldn't it work through a blood transfusion too?"

"Adult erythrocytes don't have a nuclei therefore they don't carry DNA. And Carter reckons the amount of leukocytes is too small and limited to achieve anything. On the other hand receiving donor's blood interrupted the weird symbiosis of Alpha blood and ours. So who knows what would happen. The Omega is different."

"I doesn't work like that anymore, not with the Omega. I tried."

"I'm know."

"I'm sorry, Rita. I didn't want to do this to you."

"I know."

"What are you doing with the gun?"

"Testing our hypothesis."

"Rita!"

 

-

 

He doesn't go and find her this time.

He jumps out of the helicopter before it properly touches down and simply goes the other direction. Pays an absurd amount of money for a new identity and a farm in the middle of nowhere.

He lives in self-imposed exile for 33 years, but he comes to cherish it. You can't lose what you don't have.

She doesn't find him.

It's the first loop since the Omega where he has never seen her face, has never come to know her at all. He dies and has never once met her.

 

  
Cage is a coward, but she let's him be. What's one life time when they have all the time in the world?

 

-

 

Rita is waiting at the landing site, arms crossed over her chest. She has never looked more like the woman depicted on the war posters before. The image of her he had helped to create.

And doesn't he deserve it.

"Major Cage."

"Sergeant Vrataski."

" _We fight, that's what we do_. Isn't it?"

It's been hundreds of years since he'd talked in such platitudes, given them to whoever had shoved a camera and microphone in his face. The same man had screamed at the sight of the gore of a battlefield, the blood and the dead bodies of men too young to die.

He had sold the war like one'd sell moisturising face cream, he'd led many men to the slaughter. This may just be hell; the price he is forced to pay.

"I also blackmailed General Brigham once, which got me into this mess, so what do you think?"

Rita has never met the man he'd once been. He had been through dozens of reboots, before they'd ever spoken to each other. But then so had she. They had never known each other without the sword of Damocles called war called hanging over their heads.

"Will you run forever?"

"Will it ever end?"

 

-

 

A car accident kills her before they can properly talk it out.

The shock of waking up is worse when he has no way to prepare for it.

 

-

 

Rita is nowhere to be found.

 

The moment she opens her eyes she berates herself for being so careless. She shouldn't have run that red light, she knows better.

But somehow your self preservation instincts decrease when there's no life you need to protect. The only thing she'd be protecting are physical items amassed in one loop and saving herself from conversations she's had countless times before. Her life is of less value now, like the first time she'd started looping.

So she leaves. If he gets to do it so does she.

It's the coward's way out, but any other possibility seems worse.

Time has made her her prisoner before. This time now may be forever.

(She doesn't think about how she ended up like this.)

Hendricks' deaths still linger in her head; memories she will never be able to shake. When she'd lost the Alpha's power after Verdun, she'd lost any existing connection to Hendricks. She'd wanted to stop the war and annihilate as many enemies as possible, but what she'd wanted more was for Hendricks to live.

(In the first loop - as far as her memories are concerned - , after half a bottle of gross sour apple liquor, they'd joked about how many times she'd killed him, like they are characters in a video game and not, you know, actual human beings. And she'd laughed too, but part of herself couldn't, because she'd given anything to die at the hands of a familiar face instead of being murdered by Mimics. Or herself.) 

Before the war she'd been different, she thinks. But in all honesty, she barely remembers herself without ashes in her hair, sand under her finger nails, the fight-or-flight response so ingrained into her self.

Before the war she'd been a nurse.

She'll never be able to get that back. 

She goes from town to town, helps rebuild entire cities from the ashes. People recognise her, but anyone can read her body language; they all are smart enough to not say anything to her face. There is a chaotic structure underneath it, close enough to her life as a soldier and it helps her to not think about the end of the war and what it means for her future.

Who is she when she's not the woman on the war posters?

As much as she hates the names, it gave her a purpose. Entire nations had placed expectations on her and she'd risen to the challenge.

Who is she when there's nothing left to fight for?

It doesn't take her an entire life to figure things out for herself. 26 months after the sudden mysterious victory over the alien race she stands in front of his apartment door.

"I'm a soldier. I volunteered. I'm not walking away."

 

- 

 

The visions starts about three or four loops later.

It's not the sight of the Omega luring her into a trap.

Memories come crashing down onto her, an endless stream of them. Rita holds a gun to his head and kills Cage. She holds a gun to his head and kills Cage. She holds a gun to his head and kills Cage.

How she told him her middle name as she died.

How he stood in front of her and smiled and congratulated her on the victory over the Mimics, only to turn around and leave.

Again.

Again.

Husbands and children and soldiers, all hers.

Every loop she has ever lived, consciously or not.

Somewhere in between, in her more lucid moments, she has the foresight to call Cage and Carter and explain her situation. (They don't spend every loop together. But usually they exchange numbers and email addresses then. They have a 'no suicide pact', too.)

The migraine keeps her in bed for weeks, months. It's slow and it's painful. She regains entire lives, hundreds of years worth of memory. In the worst moments she's tempted to break their pact, when the pain feels like an axe splitting her skull in half.

Afterwards she feels whole again, every missing puzzle piece inserted into the right place. Nothing will ever be the same. The war has taken the most precious parts of her, burned them to ashes, cut her sharp edges. And it had left behind a curse. 

They are almost equal now.

It's not peace, but it's acceptance.

Any power could be wielded on purpose, if you gave it enough training and attention.

 

-

 

The Omega is dead. 

The war is over.

She is one of two people - in a sea of billions - in charge of the future. 

She is something else now. 

 


End file.
